CENTRAL EUROPEAN RALLY, RECONNAISSANCES CONFIRM PITFALLS: POOR GRIP AND DIRTY ASPHALTS
In the service of Passau, the base camp of the first Central European Rally, late yesterday morning and in the early morning of today the sun appeared, which in addition to warming the air seemed to promise a less wet and humid race than feared in the previous days. Beware of easy optimism, however: the sun soon receded and reconnaissance by Pirelli engineers confirms that the penultimate rally of the world season will not be a walk in the park. Meanwhile, Thursday night and Friday morning will have rainy conditions, which will lower the already poor grip of the Czech asphalts. In addition, the morning sections on Saturday and Sunday will also feature damp asphalts, which tend to get dirty despite the numerous anti-cutting devices placed along the route. It remains confirmed that what unites the roads of Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic on which the 18 special stages will be run remains technicality and poor grip combined with speed.
TYRE STRATEGY
Given the characteristics of the road surfaces and the highly variable weather forecast, the entire range of tires available, including wet tires, will play a role in this rally. There will be a decreasing importance for the Cinturato WETs, which will presumably be called into play along with the softs most in the Thursday and Friday morning special stages, and a possible increasing importance of the hard, which will take center stage most in the second part of the weekend on medium-abrasive asphalts, provided they have completely dry surfaces and temperatures at least 10 degrees. Central remain the soft P Zero, which for this race are the prime and most suitable for medium-smooth slippery asphalt in both damp and mixed dry-damp conditions.
MAIN DATA AT A GLANCE
Ambient temperatures: generally low with a low of 10 degrees to a high of 17, with major fluctuations throughout the day
Surface types: prevalence of medium-smooth asphalts
Surface roughness: generally, not high, with peak on Saturday
Grip level: generally medium
Tire damage risk: in Pirelli engineers' rating, which adopts a scale of 1 to 5, the CER gets an average rating of 2.5 with peaks of 4 in some stages
Tyre stress&wear: not high, but not negligible either, especially on Saturday
Most challenging section: section 4, i.e., the second passes on Saturday afternoon
Below are the day-by-day analysis tables, in detail
